And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky,
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation.

Thus sang Joni Mitchell in “Woodstock,” a song of haunting beauty that she wrote in 1969 at the height of Vietnam War protest. Like all peaceniks, she assumes that “our nation” (technically, she was Canadian) is responsible for the hostilities, and if its bombers would just turn into butterflies, peace would reign.

In many places in Israel — a small, cramped country — you can hear the bombers in the sky on training flights. It most piques your interest when you hear them at night. Usually they’re just practicing night flying, but it could mean there’s been—or is going to be—an incident somewhere.

Or — in rare cases — you might hear just one bomber in the sky very late at night, in the wee hours. It can be scary: what if it’s not one of ours? Or, assuming that it is — why now, when they know it’s going to wake up and annoy (and scare) thousands of people?

Sometimes — after a bombing incident in, say, Syria or Lebanon — you’ll read a thousand speculations in the media on whether Israel was behind it, while Israeli officials remain tight-lipped and ambiguous. It may be, though, that everyone in a certain area of Israel actually knows pretty much what happened — because they heard the bombers take off from the airbase at a certain time and can see from the reports that the incident occurred shortly afterward.

There is probably no one in Israel, no matter how far to the left, who really wishes in his or her heart that the bombers weren’t there or would turn into harmless, fluttery entities.

The 1973 Yom Kippur War was the only one where it appeared for a while that Israel could lose and sink into oblivion.

Not so. Israel's continued existence was very much in doubt in 1948. (You quote Ben-Gurion as giving Israel a 50%-50% chance of survival; most analysts of the time gave far poorer odds.) And Israel's survival was very much in doubt in in May 1967; this is often forgotten in light of Israel's lightning-quick and overwhelmingly successful victory. (One small detail from that period: Israeli intelligence reported that the Egyptian army was drilling with one-time-use chemical-warfare suits, a strong indicator indeed that chemical warfare would be used, and soon. In a panic, Israel bought over a million gas masks from the only supplier who could provide them in a hurry -- which, ironically, was West Germany.)

It is also frequently forgotten that, for all of Israel's amazing advances in 1967, they came at a terrible cost. As (I believe) Moshe Dayan would later point out, in proportion to population, Israel lost twice as many sons to the 1967 war, in six days, as the United States would in Vietnam over a decade. The 1948 war was worse, with 1% of the entire population of Israel dead. (Can anyone imagine a modern American war with 30 million American deaths?)

I don't believe that, once the 1948 war officially started (right after Israel declared independence), there was any point at which it appeared the Arab armies were at the point of prevailing. And definitely not in the 1967 war. There were forebodings about Israel's possible doom before these wars. Whereas for the first couple of days of the 1973 war, there were real fears that the Arab side was on the verge of winning.

Leper? Does the Israeli leadership waste as much as a single thought on such a concern? The European elites are shot through with Jew hatred. Surely tough minded Israelis are well aware of that and make their calculations accordingly. The American Left is also filled, top to bottom, with Jew haters. Obama is a classic anti-semite. Perhaps Israelis don't see this as clearly because the Left, for the sake of deracinated American Jews' support, muzzles itself, slightly. But they should see it. There is absolutely no chance that Israel will avoid scathing "International Community" denunciation when it makes its strike against Iran. Israel must strike. I pray there are no Israelis in positions of power who will not do what Israel must do, in order to avoid leper status. You can't avoid being a pariah to those who took in Jew hatred with mother's milk.

Point of information: Israel has no bombers. No B-1, no B-2, no B-52. No B-anything. Israel has fighters and fighter-bombers. F-15, F-16. The IAF can use smart munitions against targets but it cannot fly half-way around the world and drop 100 bombs from a single plane onto a target, like a B-52 can.

Israel's enemies, until recently, were close so it didn't need a long range bomber capability. Having a lot of bombers is also expensive.

Thank you for your service. For what it's worth, I was in grade school at the time, and supported you. When I got the left-wing propaganda at school (a very conservative parochial school), my Dad, a Korean-era vet who still considers himself a Liberal Democrat, told me the other side.

As far as I am concerned, the opposition to the war was racist at base, considering that people who did not look like us did not deserve personal freedom.

Two relevant historical lessons for Israel1) Pre-emption works. Dont worry about alienating the world. They already hate us2) Saturation bombing works. Tehran, Qom and Isfahan need to be the Dresden and Tokyo of the 21st century.

Once again Mr. Hornik is in factual error. The Israelis did not launch a pre-emptive strike in 73 out of deference to their American allies, they were caught by surprise as many Israeli military have admitted, including Ariel Sharon. The implication of causation here is clear. By not going pre-emptive due to American concerns, Israeli losses were 4 times as great as in 67. Hogwash. The losses came from the near destruction of 2 Israeli armored brigades, one in a fanatical defence in Golan, the other thrown away in a premature suicidal charge against Soviet Sagger ATMs in Sinai.

In any case, Nixon/Kissinger (and I campaigned for Nixon in 72 and was willing to serve in VietNam, a noble cause) came close to destroying Israel by withholding resupply until Syria almost occupied Northern Israel. Even then, by the best accounts I have read (and I am something of a collector of opinions on the subject) Nixon basically decided to resupply because Watergate left foreign policy as about the only place he could make a decision.

Fanatical defense of the Golan? Fanatical? How about a fanatical defense to hold onto the Golan, the high ground for God's sake, as Syria had almost nothing between it and Tiberius! It was about as "fanatical" as the 400.

If it wasn't for those fanatics, including in one place a few Yeshiva boys in tanks with no shells, the Syrians could have occupied Northern Israel, raping and killing as they went.

IIRC, Israel had a few hours warning and was moving troops before the actual attack.

The fact that the IDF was surprised tactically and didn't perform to perfection in the beginning of the war doesn't show that Hornik is wrong. The issue really depends on the relevant diplomatic history.

It's been established by research that concern about U.S. (particularly Kissinger's) opposition to a preemptive strike was the main factor that deterred the relevant Israeli leaders at the time (Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, against the advice of the chief of staff) from ordering such a preemption. Even the Wikipedia article on the Yom Kippur War makes this quite clear and gives sources. One of the most recent discussions, with sources, here: http://jcpa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/V24_3_3.pdf

Kissinger, like many on the Israeli left, supports a second Holocaust. Kissinger told Nixon that the extermination of Soviet Jews would not be an American concern, and perhaps a humanitarian concern. The use of perhaps indicates that Kissinger does not see Jews as human. When it comes to Jews, the position of Eichmann and Kissinger are indistinguishable

You are so full of it. Wikipedia as a reference??? Please. Your "argument" has a hole big enough to drive the Egyptian 10th Army through. So if we [America] weren't in favor of a pre-emptive strike [like Israel ever gave a damn what other countries thought], why no re-inforcements to the 2 brigades in Golan, why no mobilization and re-inforcement to the Bar-Lev line in Sinai? Why? Because the vaunted Israeli intelligence service fell flat on it's butt and as much as you might like to blame America for it, that dog just won't hunt. After the war the entire military intrl senior staff was fired and the service re-organized. Not just for failing to warn of the impending attack, but for failing to notice little things, like the Egyptian army being armed with Sagger anti-tank missles and the 20 kilometer deep SAM belt that blew the hell out of the IAF the first 2 days. Mr. Hornik stick to writing about culture and leave military history to military historians and finally, stop smearing America with bogus BS you source from Wikipedia.

What I notice is that this is an American blog site, and that you have a penchant for trying to slip the knife to America when ever you think you can get away with it. Having checked your first response to my post you did indeed source Wikipedia as authoritive. You want to be a "self-loathing ex-patriot do it on some local {Israeli} web site. As a combat veteran of the American military I find your commentary disgusting, self-serving and despicable: and am reporting them as such.